There was this apocryphal story in Reader’s Digest many years ago, about a man who entered the clinic of a hi-flying physician. He said, “Doctor, I have a problem. Whenever I see other people’s money, I cannot help taking them away.” The doctor brought out his stethoscope, examined the patient’s chest, arms, head and abdomen. He then sat back, puffed at his cigar and said, “I have diagnosed the problem. You are a thief!”
During this long Sallah break, a second governor in a row defected from the party on whose platform he was elected and crossed over into the party that rules at the federal level. Governor Umo Eno of Akwa Ibom, said to be a pastor, nevertheless went back on his [political] vows and defected from the main opposition PDP to APC. He was the second PDP governor in recent times to so defect, Governor Sheriff Oborevwori of Delta State having done the same thing in April. Eno gave enough notice before his move. In recent months he had been openly embracing Senate President Godswill Akpabio and showering praises on the Tinubu federal administration. Last week he met with his cabinet members and formally informed them that he will be moving to APC. Anyone who is not ready to come with him should quit, the governor said.
Eno’s flirting with APC and the one week notice he gave were longer than what Governor Oborevwori gave, but still, his move was not as smooth as the latter’s. Whereas the Delta governor took along his predecessor in office, David Okowa [or maybe the other way around] as well as his entire basket of commissioners, special advisers and assistants, local government chairmen and councilors and all PDP officials at state and local government levels, several aides refused to follow Oga Eno to APC. At the weekend, there were reports that three commissioners quit, rather than follow him. There was also no mention of his predecessor in officer, ex-governor Udom Emmanuel, who masterminded Eno’s ascension to the governorship.
There was one story at the weekend saying the Minister of State for Defence Bello Mutawalle, a former governor of Zamfara State, publicly invited his successor Governor Dauda Lawal to also cross over to APC. According to Mutawalle, Lawal is trying to enter APC surreptitiously, and he was inviting him to come in through the front door. There is as yet no public indication that Lawal too is thinking of cross carpeting; he has so far loyally attended PDP governors’ and executive committee meetings and has kept his state PDP intact.
Why did two PDP governors, of states that have been solidly PDP since 1999, both of them first-termers with very good chances of getting re-elected, flee to APC with two years still to go before the next election? Let us image they have entered the clinic of a political physician. He brought out a political stethoscope and examined them thoroughly. He then declared, “I have diagnosed the problem. You are suffering from political cowardice.”
Natural and man-made disasters have been a staple diet in Nigeria for as long as I can remember, but the recent flood in Mokwa, Niger State, was extremely painful to watch, even on a social media video. Where did so much water suddenly come from? Since Mokwa town is sitting by the River Niger, water has been its residents’ day and night companion for generations. They drink it, use it for domestic purposes, fish in it, irrigate their farms and row their canoes in it. Yet, the threat from water is ever present. Researchers looking for signs of life in other planets essentially look for water, but mankind’s best resource can suddenly become a deadly enemy. What caused the Mokwa flood? There are three huge dams in the vicinity, so the first suspicion was that they were opened to release water. Minister of Water Resources however said no dams were opened, that it was unusually heavy rainfall occasioned by climate change. This Minister should walk into the clinic of a physician for testing. He will examine him all over and then declare, “I have diagnosed the problem. You are in charge of Africa’s third longest river, people built houses right on its banks and you didn’t tell them water was coming. You are an absentee minister.”
No event in Nigeria in the past ten days received more camera and video shots as much as the commissioning of completed sections of the colossal Lagos-Calabar expressway. President Tinubu, the French contractor, many governors and ministers were on hand to witness the event. As it happened, only 30kms out of the projected 700 kms was commissioned. That, too, was disjointed, according to a social media activist who straddled the road with a video camera. He said 18kms of the road was separated from another ten kms, while all the other sections were marshes plus heaps of gravel here and there. Ok, a government that is marking its half time in office needs to commission something, but why commission a project that is only 4% completed? If a student gets 4% in a WAEC exam, will his parents organize a celebration, even if he promises to make up more marks by next year? Minister of Works Dave Umahi should enter our physician’s clinic for an examination. After examining him with a stethoscope and scanning machine, the physician is likely to say, “You are a hard-working minister but I have diagnosed the problem. Sycophancy has gotten into the way of engineering.”
That missing handshake in Lagos also deserves a physician’s thorough evaluation. Many VIPs lined up at a state function in Lagos to greet the President. He was shaking their hands one by one until he came upon the outstretched hands of the Governor of Lagos. The President skipped Babatunde Sanwo-Olu’s hand and went straight to the next person. Was it a slip or a snub? Was it a fall out from the botched effort earlier this year to remove Lagos State Assembly Speaker Mudashiru Obasa, an event that folks said had caused frosty ties between the governor and his godfather the president? This happened around the same time as the biggest international fall-out, between US President Donald Trump and tech billionaire Elon Musk, up to and including allegations of appearing in a paedophile’s guest list. Nigerian leaders being copycats, did they think we must copy everything that Oyinbos do?
Governor Sanwo-Olu should go, not to a physician this time, but to a Babalawo. The spiritualist is likely to sweep the ground, recite incantations and then declare that the missing handshake portends a great future for both men. How, no one can tell at the moment; we must wait and see. Some missing handshakes are actually life savers. A few years ago, I wrote about the late Colonel John Yahaya Madaki, who escaped execution for suspected involvement in the abortive Dimka coup of 1976 partly because Defence Minister Major General Iliya Bisalla snubbed him and refused to shake his hand among sixty officers lined up at the NDA Officer’s Mess in Kaduna. Who knows, this snub may turn out to save Sanwo-Olu from the political equivalent of execution, which is impeachment.
In recent times, Benue State has been the Ground Zero of killings by roving bands. Certainly, as both President Tinubu and the Army Chief indicated recently, there are underlying inter communal issues fueling the problem. At the weekend however, Governor Hyacinth Alia introduced a new angle when he alleged that politicians were behind the killings. He mentioned National Assembly members and other people in Abuja, a not-so-veiled finger pointing at his intra-party rival, Secretary to the Government of the Federation [SGF] George Akume. The governor said these prominent Benue indigenes remained silent in the wake of the bloodshed. Akume took the hint, and his office quickly issued a statement, saying as SGF he was doing many things by following due process and not in the airwaves.
Both Governor Alia and SGF Akume should walk into the physician’s clinic. This time he is likely to put both on them under an MRI machine, take several images and examine them carefully. He will then say, ‘I have diagnosed the problem. You, Governor Alia, you are suffering from another form of the Ortom Syndrome. Whenever it was time to pay salaries and Ortom didn’t have the money, he blamed herdsmen, who had never seen a voucher. Instead of commissioning projects to mark your Half Time in office, you are blaming politicians for the killings.” He will then turn to the SGF and say, “I have also diagnosed your problem, Mr. Akume. You are a failed godfather. You did not forgive Mr. Alia for defeating your godson in the APC primaries three years ago and you are bent on denying him a second term.”
Reports at the weekend had it that major opposition party leaders failed to achieve a consensus on the way forward, beyond their unanimously agreed goal that President Tinubu and APC should be marched out of Aso Rock in 2027. Yet, they cannot agree on which briefcase political party to join, or whether they should seek to register a new party. And that’s even their small problem. The bigger problem is who should head their joint presidential ticket after the merger? Essentially, should it be Atiku Abubakar with Peter Obi as running mate, or should it be Peter Obi with an Atiku anointed running mate, since Atiku himself cannot be running mate, having been vice president for eight years already?
Both leaders should submit themselves to a test in that prominent physician’s clinic. This time he will run a blood test on both of them, test their heartbeats and pulse rate, then take saliva samples like we used to see during the Covid pandemic. The results will come in within minutes. The doctor will say, “I have diagnosed the problem. You, Wazirin Adamawa, you are a perennial candidate. You think you must lead the ticket because you are politically senior to Mr. Obi and you got more votes in the last election. You are suffering from forever running syndrome.” Next, he will turn to the other patient and say, “Mr. Obi, I have diagnosed your problem. You want to become president so that you will turn Nigeria into China. You want the Obidient movement to become our Communist Party when it is only three years old with branch offices all over the social media. You are suffering from political leapfrog syndrome, from number three in the last election to number one in the next election.”
